A painting left unfinished… I originally started this painting in the summer of 2017.

If a painting can depict an artist’s state of mind, let’s set the tone of 2017:  The loss of my muse, Single mother of 3 teenage boys, Graduate Student, Working a full-time job, and a massive writing project. I was over extended to say the least.  Trump had been sworn into office and my role as a woman in America felt threatened.

Where does my art fit into this world? I longed for more female produced art. Desperately craving the influence and impact that women have on the art world. I studied female artist and the feminist movement. These artists were angry at patriarchal society, although justified, I struggled with this emotion.

Yes, I am angry sometimes, but I want to heal the energy not continue to rip open the battle wound and pour salt on it.  As the mother of three boys, who will someday be men, how can perpetuate this theme that men are the root of the problem.

How do I balance my semi feminist art and still raise better men, who are masculine yet emotionally and physically strong?  How do you raise men that treat women better, if I can’t figure out how to treat myself? How do I teach them that it is acceptable for a woman or girl to be able to communicate their emotional, sexual, and mental wants or needs? This is a strength, not a weakness.

Frustrated with life and feeling completely stifled, I started on this painting as a way explore myself, my art, my sexual control, and my relationship with my pussy.

I was looking for that euphoric state of mind for clarity and how to really achieve what I wanted for myself.  

How do sex and creative live on this wavelength?

Why does the statement, by our now president, “Grab them by the pussy” invoke so much rage among my gender?

Especially, since in the right setting this statement would have been funny to me.

A woman’s self-pleasure was never talked about growing up and female pleasure was not the center of the discussion. The theme of sex was that men wanted it and it was about them; lay down for him; procreate for him; and all on his schedule or command.

Girls are told that touching themselves is disgusting and that they shouldn’t do it. This mentality surrounds girls with feeling wrong, guilty, and dirty yet, this touching doesn’t feel wrong or dirty. Boys are not fed the same guilt or shame that girls are.  

Porn has become the definition of sex in our society and is a male control field. Boys and Girls are being flooded with imagines of woman serving men and setting unreal expectations of sex.

What if sex was taught as the center of pleasure or as ebb and flow between two people?

The original theme for this painting was about women having the courage to grab their own pussies. I put out a call for a woman to send me their self-pleasuring moments. Once I received a few photos I began to work.

I was feeling proud of this painting and the overall direction. It was going to be incredible, but the noise from the out world invade. My eldest was mortified by this piece and our already turbulent relationship exploded with a list of all the things that were wrong with me. All of the things my 16-year-old thought of me and all of the things that he wanted me to change in order for him to be in my life.

Now this was not the first time I had been told I was too much and should change, but it was the first time those words halted all of my creativity. I didn’t respond to his demands and we didn’t talk for over a month. I journaled and worked through the tigers and self-doubt that this list sparked and this painting sat on an easel unattended. Mocking me….

I started new projects and let the idea percolate, hoping I would eventually get back to this painting. There were parts of it I like and yet it still wasn’t conveying what I wanted it to.  The list is all I could think about.

I continued to write, and my mentor introduced to half dozen female writers and artists, who were about going inward to fuel change. At this point I had altered and changed this painting and tried to salvage the parts I still liked, but I was still unsatisfied with it and feared it was a lost cause. A deflated concept and it went into storage.

I moved to other work and read more books by Regena Thomashauer and Lisa Lister.  The best lines were,”Hello, Gorgeous” and “Fix the feminine energy and the masculine energy will heal too” This is the concept rolled over and over in my head.

I had just completed “Fate or Free Will” and was preparing another canvas. But I pulled out this old canvas and brought it back into the studio.

“Heal the Feminine and to heal the masculine”   

Sometimes when I sketch, I will pull a book off my shelf, opened to a page, usually its page 44. I went to line four… “I’ve cultivated a deep and thorough, proactive of listening, dedication, surrender, and responsibility,…”

I sketched and carried these words for a few days… Surrender rolled over and over in my brain… How do I save the center of this painting? How do silence the list?

Why encourage female masturbation?

Why encourage women to honor or worship their pussy?

Why encourage women to touch them self and to find their own pleasure?

Why do I masturbate?

Surrender. Surrender. Surrender, sang in my brain.

To black out the noise was the answer… I lay in bed at night and the lists roll through my mind like a tidal wave.

Recapping the ever evolving “to do” list.

The electric bill was due 11th

Will the baseball cleats from last year still fit?

Where is the crockpot for Saturday?

The dishes didn’t get done, maybe I’ll get up early and do them.

Did I lock the back door?

Did I send that email for work?

The exhibit deadline is the 13th

Pages are due on 19th, I should write more

Look to left and see the empty side of my bed. Look to the right and see the clock… go sleep

Random recaps of lovers and what went wrong

Recap of why the old man at the bar flashed his dick at me.

Why do men only want to sext and not actually meet?

They all want a mother to marry and a whore to fuck.

Is there a happy medium to this?

The words throughout the day, week or month…

Whore

Slut

Mother

The balance in my checking account

Dirty girl

My puss

Powerful

All racing around as if there is a finish line and my hand moves south.

To explore a forbidden land.

To explore the thing that men desire and fear the most.  

As I feel the warmth radiating and fingers find their rhythm the noise gets quieter and the sensation of pleasure moves up my body. I have to surrender and the noise fades to black and for the next 30 seconds to 10 mins I am lost in self pleasure, nothing else matter and the world doesn’t exist for this moment it is ALL me and the sensation of surrendering to myself  to climb the mountain in order to calm the tidal wave and center my thoughts.

Release the expectation of others and regain my control.

Thank you, Gorgeous, you are the key to silence.